One of my good friends in high school was an exchange student from German named Julian. His English was passable. Anyways, one day he was telling me about how we was in a band and opened for one of Coldplay's concerts. I asked him about performing in English and if he really got into the songs despite not fully knowing the meaning of the words. His response reminded me a lot of the point Canagarajah made that despite not having a proficiency of the performing language just like the non-Tamils viewers of M.I.A. he was still able understand it just like Canagarajah said that, "I can confirm that non-Tamils are able to interpret her(M.I.A.) rhetorical intentions and social meanings quite well"(4). This comprehension is explainable through the underlying concept that, "communication transcends words and involves diverse semiotic resources and ecological affiances."(6) There is more to the performance of a song than just the words of the lyrics, and that is why even those without great proficiency of the performing language like my friend Juian and the viewers of M.I.A. can still understand and appreciate the performance.
This past week after fraternity rush, I returned to my suite dorm room to find my two friends conversing in Spanish. One of my friends is a native speaker and the other only studied Spanish in high school. This is a common occurrence among these friends. I always found it amusing because for my friend who is a native speaker Spanish is his first language, and whenever he speaks Spanish he is more expressive than in when he speaks English.
Prior to reading Cangarajah, I viewed this change in personality through a monolingual lens. This experience made me think that languages are separate. After reading Cangarajah, I have had this belief uprooted and now look through a translingual lens instead. While my friend may be more confident speaking Spanish, it does not actually make a language more separate. There are factors and modes of communication besides language that can explain this increased expressiveness. Additionally, having taken French in high school I was able to understand the occasional word of their conversation. This slight competence reminded me of how similar languages are and how they draw upon each other just as Cangarajah talks about in Translingual Practice. Multilingualism at Emory has been constructed to share my student work on the topic of multilingualism. Stay tuned for great content coming this Friday(1/23/15).
|
AuthorThis is where I, a rising freshman at Emory University, blog about multilingualism. Archives
April 2015
Categories |